


You've Got the Love

by foronesong



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, sibling relationships mean a lot to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3442325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foronesong/pseuds/foronesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Be good Gamora, her mother tells her but then she dies and Gamora is rebuilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got the Love

# You’ve Got the Love

 

_Be good Gamora_ , her mother tells her before she runs out with the other kids.

In the evening, Thanos drops from the sky and paints them red.

_Gamora Gamora_ , her mother tries to choke through blood. Tries to fold Gamora back into her body even as she convulses, even as she leaks out more blood. Gamora puts her hand against her mother’s skin and it comes away red.  _Be good Gamora._

Her heart is wrong in her chest: too fast and too loud and making her sick.

_Mama_ , she says quietly.  _Mama_ , louder. There are bodies fallen, frozen, in her house that she knows. They’ve just stopped moving.

And then, her mother does too.

-

He takes her into space with him after she’s tried her best to kill him. Her ribs are cracked and she  _hurts_  after being dropped onto the deck. Gamora tries to crawl forward, leaving a trail of blood, and only makes it a few inches before Thanos kicks her onto her back.

She rasps in a breath and spits out, “You killed my parents.”

He presses a foot against her stomach, pushes the air out of her and then pushes a bit more. “That was but the beginning of your journey.” He leaves her gasping for breath and her ribs aching even more.

She lies there, pressing her hand against the holes in her own body. Her mother’s blood gets covered in her blood and she presses harder.

Thanos reappears in her vision with a wet cloth in one hand and a glass of _something_ in the other. He pulls her to her feet and she’s pretty sure her ribs are grinding against each other. But, she makes herself stand up so it’s not just his pull but her own legs too that get her up. He moves her hand and presses the cloth against the wound. It burns and heals and burns.

“Soon, you will be remade in my image. This home of yours will mean nothing.” 

-

He gives her a new heart, puts it in her chest when she isn’t looking.

When she wakes up, when she asks why, he smiles, pleased. “You have done well for me. You have done everything I have asked. I only give what you deserve.”

This heart will not fail her, will not seize in her chest or thud in her ears. It will not be too fast or too loud or make her sick. She cannot feel it behind her new wiring.

-

She’s dying, she’s dying, her wires freezing over and the mechanical pumping of her mechanical heart slowing down. She’s dying outside a scavenging ground, the starlight turning her to ice.

She wonders if Thanos will come after. If he will rip out her wiring and her brain, take out all the important bits of her as if he could find later uses for it. This time, she’ll be dead. This time, she won’t feel a thing.

The lights of a hollowed out head blur.

The ice glues her eyes shut, slides down her throat and cuts into her lips.

She’s dying, she’s –

-

In the long list of that which has been built, Gamora was the third and Nebula the seventh.

She has only known Nebula as this: blue skinned, black eyed and spitting with hatred, always searching for the blood that has been taken out of her. Nebula who uses her body and hates it and in return, Nebula has only known her for her long silences and steady hands.

There is also this: Gamora and Nebula after a kill, wiping off blood in tandem until the water is pink from them both; Gamora and Nebula kneeling before Thanos’ throne, leaning towards the other; Gamora and Nebula training each other, learning the other through the bruises they inflict.

There is also Gamora and Nebula.

Gamora looks for a way out and Nebula looks for a way to Thanos’ throne.

But they make a sensational team.

-

Once, Nebula’s chest is ripped open. Gamora is there to see it, can feel the blood and electrical shocks at her fingertips.

Thanos fixes Nebula, gives her a new heart too.

She wakes up and sits with a hand pressed to her chest. Gamora wonders what her heart sounds like, if it’s anything like her own. She wonders if this wasn’t some sort of betrayal on her part.

-

After Ronan, well, explodes, after Nova Corps is done with them, Gamora goes hunting. She slips into the underworld, wearing a cloak, wearing a mask so that no one knows who she is.

Everywhere it is the same questions:  _Have you seen Nebula? Have you seen a woman with blue skin and dark eyes and one hand? Did you see anyone fall from the sky?_

She isn’t subtle. But the point isn’t to be subtle. So when she ends up in front of the Craftsman, it’s nothing less than she expects.

“Please, have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the empty chair across the table. “And take off the cloak. There will be no need for pretense here.”

“I’m looking for Nebula,” Gamora replies, still standing.

“I am aware.”

“Then you have a way to find her?”

The Craftsman sighs, taking a sip of her tea. “I have built my own empire on the back of the empire that preceded mine. That empire used the skeletons of the one before it. For every Craftsman, the empire is unmade and remade. That is the meaning of ownership. Do you understand that?”

Gamora swallows, unable to look at the woman seated at the table. The gears of her heart grind together for a second and she things she hears the metal groaning.

“I want nothing to do with you, daughter of Thanos –“

“I am not his daughter,” she hisses.

“And yet you are looking for your sister.”

She pauses for a moment, remembers a blue skinned man holding an arrow at Peter’s throat, how Peter let him go at the end. She knows that Peter worries they’ll run into him again -  same as she knows Peter will never kill him.

“She’s the only family I had for a while.”

She waits for the Craftsman’s judgment, prepares for the guards who will come back to kill her. Her mind is already looking for weapons and exits and –

“She is no longer here. Your search is pointless.”

She leaves Xandar empty handed.

-

Gamora is on the deck of the Milano, the black of space whizzing past. The hum of the artificial lighting steadies her heart. The crew is asleep beneath her feet. This also steadies her heart.

Nebula is somewhere, waiting for Gamora to find her. And she will. She knows her heart after all. 


End file.
